that great Deep hath made!

Will He not pity?--He, whose searching eye
Reads all the secrets of thine agony?--
Oh! pray to be forgiven
Thy fond idolatry, thy blind excess,
And seek with _Him_ that Bower of Blessedness--
Love! _thy_ sole Home is Heaven!

_New Monthly Magazine_.

* * * * *

ORIENTAL SMOKING.

In India a hookah, in Persia a nargilly, in Egypt a sheesha, in Turkey
a chibouque, in Germany a meerschaum, in Holland a pipe, in Spain a
cigar--I have tried them all. The art of smoking is carried by the
Orientals to perfection. Considering the contemptuous suspicion with
which the Ottomans ever regard novelty, I have sometimes been tempted to
believe that the eastern nations must have been acquainted with tobacco
before the discovery of Raleigh introduced it to the occident; but a
passage I fell upon in old Sandys intimates the reverse. That famous
traveller complains of the badness of the tobacco in the Levant, which,
he says, is occasioned by Turkey being supplied only with the dregs of
the European markets. Yet the choicest tobacco in the world now grows
upon the coasts of Syria.

What did they do in the East before they smoked? From the many-robed
Pacha, with his amber-mouthed and jewelled chibouque, longer than a
lancer's spear, to the Arab clothed only in a blue rag, and puffing
through a short piece of hollowed date-wood, there is, from Stamboul
to Grand Cairo, only one source of physical solace. If you pay a visit
in the East, a pipe is brought to you with the same regularity that a
servant in England places you a seat. The procession of the pipe, in
great houses, is striking: slaves in showy dresses advancing in order,
with the lighted chibouques to their mouths waving them to and fro;
others bearing vases of many-coloured sherbets, and surrounding a
superior domestic, who carries the strong and burning coffee in small
cups of porcelain supported in frames of silver fillagree, all placed
upon a gorgeous waiter covered with a mantle of white satin, stiff and
shining with golden embroidery.

In public audiences all this is an affair of form. "The honour of the
pipe" proves the consideration awarded to you. You touch it with your
lips, return it, sip a half-filled cup of coffee, rise, and retire. The
next day a swarm of household functionaries call upon you for their
fees. But in private visits, the luxury of the pipe is more apprecia